Research and Development Funding and Horizon Europe

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

Thank you, Mr Hosie, but it was nevertheless an important intervention to hear and, given the authority of the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, worth noting. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making it.

There are countless similar examples. The example that I was giving about the gene therapy innovation and manufacturing centre is similar in many ways. It is led by Professor Mimoun Azzouz, who has won several prestigious EU framework programme awards. He leads a consortium of 34 international partners from academia and business, including big pharmaceutical companies, that is progressing gene therapy approaches for industry and patients. It is part-funded by the EU and part-funded by industry. The earlier funding that he received was European Research Council funding. The next step for his project is an ERC synergy grant, which will not be open to him if we are reduced to third-country participation in Horizon. That is an important point, and there will be many similar projects.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Some have suggested that the UK not only join the Horizon scheme but press forward with aspects of the Pioneer programme to cement ourselves as a global scientific powerhouse. Does the hon. Member think that that is a realistic solution that will boost our performance in research and development?

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Member makes an important point and I will go on to cover it in a little bit more detail.

Horizon and its predecessor programmes have been central to the UK’s research success, which is why the Government made association with Horizon Europe an aim throughout the Brexit negotiations. Obviously, that aim fell victim to the Government’s mishandling of the Northern Ireland protocol, but now that the Windsor framework has been agreed, which we can all welcome, the door is open again. I look to the Minister to reassure us, when he responds to this debate, that the Government will take advantage of that opportunity, because it is good news that these discussions have been taking place.

When the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology met Commissioner Mariya Gabriel earlier this month, she said that association must be on the “right terms”. Of course that is right, but we need reassurance that behind her comments there is a real commitment to securing the right terms so that we can re-engage with Horizon Europe, because we should remember that it is the single largest collaborative research programme in the world. Let us dwell on that fact; alternatives to Horizon Europe are not available. Horizon Europe provides participants with unparalleled routes to international partnerships, both within the EU and—importantly—beyond the EU.

I will give one final example from Sheffield. The University of Sheffield’s Amos project illustrates how Horizon provides a platform for collaboration with the world beyond Europe. The university’s nuclear advanced manufacturing research centre leads a €2.6 million four-year collaboration between European and Canadian aerospace manufacturers and researchers, in order to investigate the use of additive manufacturing techniques for repair and manufacture of aerospace components. The project was supported by Canadian funding agencies: the Consortium for Aerospace Research and Innovation in Canada, or CARIC; and the Naval Systems Engineering Resource Centre, or NSERC. However, it was more attractive to them because of its association with the Horizon programme.

Horizon is an established infrastructure—an ecosystem for leading innovation and research—that has been built over four decades, and built with the UK at its heart. It gives us a platform to establish ourselves as global research leaders, where we have been highly successful not just in securing grants but in shaping the direction of international research programmes and in training the next generation of scientists. It is a champions league for research and development; it connects the best countries with the best talent to produce the best results.

The UK received €7 billion in research funding between 2014 and 2020 as part of Horizon 2020, with 2,000 UK businesses participating and €1.4 billion being awarded to UK industry. In total, 31,000 collaborative links were established with countries around the world, delivering scientific breakthroughs that strengthen the breadth and diversity of both our trade and our academic connections. Russell Group universities alone won grants worth €1.8 billion through Horizon 2020, which was more than the whole of France won.

The economic benefit of Horizon is huge but, as we have begun to discuss, there are even more compelling reasons for association with it. Horizon Europe offers unrivalled access to a ready-made collaborative funding scheme, making it easier to work across multiple countries. That point was made in a recent letter to the Prime Minister from over 30 business leaders, who said that the UK cannot do alone what Horizon Europe offers. Their letter warned that a UK alternative to Horizon

“could not recreate…wide-ranging benefits”

of being part of the EU programme. While we are considering the contributions of Select Committee Chairs, I will add that the same point was made by the Conservative Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, whose Committee will look at this issue tomorrow. He said that

“the benefits of association go beyond the funding the government can provide”.

Horizon also gives access to international markets and strengthens trade. Without association, the UK is not eligible for grants or investment from the European Innovation Council fund, which supports small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups in developing disruptive innovations that are too risky for private investors. Horizon projects not only fund innovation, but bring together researchers, SMEs and multinationals to develop new products and supply chains.

[Margaret Ferrier]

EU officials have expressed concerns about the UK’s willingness to take part in the Horizon scheme, despite assurances that there would be no expectation of membership payments for the two years during which the UK was excluded from it. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that ongoing delays may push UK-based researchers to seek alternative access to funding by moving operations out of Britain, causing us to lose some of the brightest minds in the UK?

[Paul Blomfield]

It was because of those concerns that I sought today’s debate. Government policy for quite some time—since the referendum—seems to have been going through a period of hesitancy, so I am looking for reassurance from the Minister, particularly given some of the issues about funding. We know that we will not have to make a contribution for those two years as part of the reassurances on the EU side, so we need to engage effectively in those discussions.

Through access to international markets, Horizon provides a springboard to partnerships with businesses and universities worldwide, and strengthens our position as a global player. This will be absolutely necessary to achieve the Government’s ambition of becoming a science superpower.

To train and recruit more scientists and researchers—the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set a target of 150,000 more by 2030—we need to attract top talent from abroad. We will lose out without Horizon, which has drawn international researchers—not just other Europeans—to the UK for the past 40 years. We will lose domestic talent too. Even with the Government’s guarantee to match the funding that researchers are unable to receive through Horizon, Science|Business found that 13% of researchers relocated out of from the UK in 2021. According to the Royal Society, we have lost at least one in six of the outstanding UK-based researchers who were awarded flagship Horizon Europe grants, so matching funding alone, as plan B seeks to do, will not maintain our position as a global research leader. Finally, association with Horizon, as opposed to third-party status, gives us a seat at the table in shaping the direction of international research.

It is against that background that we should look at plan B, the Pioneer programme, which was announced during the recess. It is claimed that it would match Horizon’s £14.6 billion spending and its seven-year programme length. The prospectus is long and heavy on jargon, but light on detail, so we do not know whether it will match up to association with Horizon Europe. There are too many unanswered questions.

First, on the funding split between the four pillars of Pioneer, the largest amount—£3.8 billion—will go to Pioneer Global. Pioneer Innovation will receive £3.5 billion, Pioneer Talent will receive £2 billion and Pioneer Infrastructure will receive £1.7 billion. That adds up to £11 billion—I know the Prime Minister is keen on maths—but page 4 of the document says that the UK will invest £14.6 billion through to 2027-28. Where is the other money?

Where is the guarantee over the duration of the programme? Horizon offers certainty for seven years, but the prospectus for the Pioneer proposal says in many places that funding will be

“subject to future spending reviews”.

A seven-year programme means nothing if the Government can pull the plug on funding at any stage. It is not simply about contributions; it is about confidence.

On the net contribution, how can the Government claim that researchers will get more from Pioneer than from Horizon when there is no certainty about the funding? Frankly, the Government’s record of replacing EU funding at the same level via domestic schemes is not great. Despite a 2019 Conservative party manifesto commitment to match EU economic development funding, the domestic replacement scheme, the UK shared prosperity fund, represents a 43% cut. It is even more for us in South Yorkshire, where the £605 million of structural funds we would have received as a less developed region has been replaced just by pots of £10 million here and £10 million there. But this is not just about money—it is about confidence. A lack of certainty will drive away talent to other countries where the funding can be secured.

There are also questions about the role of the European Research Council if we are left with Pioneer. Throughout the prospectus that the Government published over the recess, there is much emphasis on the importance of the ERC and the benefits it brings to the UK. That is right, but how will collaboration with the ERC be possible in practice if we are reduced to third party status? For example, we will not be eligible for ERC grants.

In the global pillar, the prospectus suggests that Pioneer will look beyond bilateral agreements to minilateral agreements, with groups of countries on specific challenges, but it is not clear how those partners will be chosen and what issues they will consider. As a plan B, Pioneer does not match up to what is needed.

Among the organisations that have commented on the prospectus, the Institute of Physics put it well, saying that

“any alternative to Horizon must also make up for the loss of the established networks, partnerships, and infrastructure the UK has benefited from over many years”—

which plan B clearly fails to do. It risks leaving us at the margins of global research, no longer at the centre. Clearly, a UK-based programme would be better than nothing, but I hope that the Government’s benchmark is higher.

Outside Horizon, or with third party status, the UK will have no seat at the table to shape the direction of the world’s biggest research programme. It will limit the attraction of the UK as a destination for talent and investment. We will be locked out of our leadership position in key research disciplines, because we will not be a trusted partner to lead on specific projects. Turning our backs on Horizon means putting us in direct competition with countries that should be our key global partners.

Frankly, this situation does not match up to the Government’s ambition to be a science superpower. If they are serious about retaining Britain’s position as a global research superpower and about promoting and sustaining economic growth, I hope the Minister will reassure us today that the Government are serious in the negotiations and that they will do everything in their power to secure association.